LGBTQ YouTube Stars

Since launching in 2005, the video-sharing website YouTube has grown exponentially in terms of popularity, viewership, influence, and global reach. Founded by three employees of the payment-processing firm PayPal, the YouTube site was purchased by Google in 2006 for US$ 1.5 billion. Today, YouTube accounts for a material portion of the growth of Google itself.

As a video-sharing website, YouTube’s original audience was the tech-savvy young generation, but this has subsequently expanded to include all generations of cell phone, computer, tablet, and other electronic device users. The attraction for many presenters on YouTube (who create their own channels) is that it allows global access for their personal videos that cost very little to produce – an entrepreneur’s dream.

Over the last few years, many popular YouTube stars (in terms of subscribers to their YouTube channel) have used their exposure to come out as LGBTQ. In each case, their public announcement of their sexual orientation has not hindered their immense popularity.

LGBTQ YouTube stars have made their mark in numerous fields of interest. These include music (Steve Grand), the sciences (Greg Brown and Mitchell Moffitt), activism (Connor Franta), cooking (Hannah Hart), fashion and modelling (Ingrid Nilsen and Nikkie de Jager), make-up (Bretman Rock and Jeffree Star), transgender issues (Jazz Jennings), online psychotherapy (Matthew J. Dempsey), gay parenting (Frank Lowe), sitcoms (Joey Graceffa), blogs (B. Scott), comedy (Mawaan Rizwan), wine (Matt Bellassai), fitness (Caleb Marshall), and more.

Did you know the first YouTube channel to have over 1 million subscribers was an LGBTQ individual? He was Lucas Cruikshank, creator of Fred Figglehorn (a fictional 6 year old). The Fred character has spun off its own television show (on Nickleodeon) and movies. YouTuber Eugene Lee Yang of Buzzfeed and The Try Guys, who came out as gay in 2019, has collectively had over 2 billion views of his videos!

As well, gay Troye Sivan has the number 2 YouTube channel in Australia. Michael Buckley is noted for breaking the record for YouTube ratings when four of his shows ended up on the week's ten top-rated videos.

We have identified the following popular YouTube stars as out and proud members of the LGBTQ community:

Australia